Sea Shepherd locates Japanese whalers, exposes slaughter

Former Greens Senator and now Sea Shepherd Australia (SSA) chairman, Bob Brown, spoke in Hobart this morning to confirm the Sea Shepherd Fleet has located all five Japanese whale poaching vessels, including the Japanese factory ship, the Nisshin Maru, inside the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary (SOWS).

Three SSA vessels – The Steve Irwin, The Bob Barker, and The Sam Simon – are now pursuing the Japanese whaling fleet. Their mission is to drive them away from the target poaching grounds, disrupt their hunt, prepare to shut down their whale-killing operations, and to ultimately send them back home.

The Steve Irwin’s helicopter first located the Nisshin Maru at 64°44′ S, 162°34′ W, in New Zealand’s sovereign waters in the Ross Dependency Antarctic region, and inside the internationally recognised SOWS.

Sea Shepherd claims it has obtained footage and images of three dead protected minke whales on the deck of the Nisshin Maru, taken at the time the factory ship was first located. A fourth whale, believed to be a minke, was being butchered on the bloodstained deck.

SSA managing director, Jeff Hansen, said, the Southern Ocean has been tainted by illegal whaling activities. He said, “No one will ever know the pain and suffering these playful, gentle giants went through from the time the explosive harpoon ripped through their bodies to the time they drew their last breath in a red sea full of their own blood. ”

The group denounced the blood stains on the deck of the Japanese vessel and called it a barbaric act. Captain of The Steve Irwin, Sid Chakravarty, said, “When ‘science’ requires you to grotesquely bloat up the bodies of protected whales, stroll across a deck smeared with their blood, hauling their body parts with hooks and chains, and discarding their remains over the side, then that ‘science’ has no place in the 21st Century.

“The Nisshin Maru is an out-and-out butcher ship and a floating butchery has no place in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Sea Shepherd will remain relentless in driving these fake, desperate and subverting ‘scientists’ back to Tokyo.”

Captain of The Bob Barker, Peter Hammarstedt, said,

Once again, the Japanese government has shown flagrant disregard for international law by continuing their illegal whale hunt while the world patiently awaits a decision from the International Court of Justice. The Japanese government’s dishonourable attempt the skirt the legal process is an insult to the cooperation demonstrated by people around the world, dedicated to enacting conservation laws out of a shared recognition for the need for environmental protection.